Aggressive campaigning in combination with a slew of negative television advertisements has allowed President George W. Bush to pull even with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, according to a new opinion poll released Saturday.
The Newsweek survey shows Bush and Kerry neck-and-neck with 48 percent support each among registered voters.
A similar poll conducted by the magazine a month ago showed the Massachusetts senator ahead of the president 48 to 45 percent.
The survey also confirmed concerns of many Democrats that , who say the independent candidacy of liberal consumer advocate Ralph Nader could syphon off enough votes from their party's candidate to assure Bush's re-election.
Nader, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2000 and is blamed by many Democrats for former vice president Al Gore's narrow defeat by Bush, announced his decision to make another bid for the White House last month. If Nader is factored in, Bush would lead among registered voters with 45 percent, followed by Kerry at 43 percent and Nader at five percent, according to the Newsweek poll.
The president's approval rating remained unchanged from the February poll, holding at 48 percent, with 44 percent disapproving of his performance. Forty-six percent of those polled said they would like to see Bush re-elected, up slightly from the 43 percent in the last Newsweek poll.
Fifty-two percent said they had a favourable opinion of Bush while 51 percent said the same of Kerry.
The poll indicated Bush was unlikely to face any negative fallout from the Iraq war, with 57 percent of respondents saying the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq and only 37 percent disapproving of the war.
At the same time, 36 percent said military action against Iraq has done more to increase the risk that large numbers of Americans will be killed in a future terrorist attack, up from 28 percent in December.
This survey of 1,006 adults conducted March 18-19 had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.